by J. Thorn
A woman began to cough, and Gaston turned, the sound reminding him of the wild dogs that roamed the northern lands and barked at the moon. He saw her hunch over. She took a hand from her mouth and sprayed the pristine, white snow with blood. The others took a step back as she collapsed to the ground. The rest of the clan stood there, staring at the woman now lying on the road before them.
“Someone help her,” Gaston said, but nobody moved.
Roke appeared at Gaston’s side and grabbed his arm. “She has sores. They won’t touch her.”
The woman’s body lurched and she coughed again, this time casting a dark red rope of blood on to the snow-covered road. She writhed, clutching at her throat, and yet nobody moved. A few seconds later she stopped moving.
Gaston stepped forward and the clan took a step backward, allowing him to walk past the fire and to the spot where the woman lay. He bent down, and even through her bundled rags he could smell the rot. Gaston gagged at the sickly-sweet odor of decay; the odd mixture that smelled like urine and wet fur. She stared into his face, her dead eyes locked on his.
A man walked over and tossed a thin, filthy blanket over her. “Gerty deserves more but this is all we have for her.”
The rest of the clan turned back to the fire, and Gaston heard two or three more coughs within their tight circle, all muffled by coats and scarves.
“They think that hiding their sickness will keep it away,” Roke said.
“They are not sick. This is how the seasons run. You know this.”
“They know the sores and the death are not part of the seasons.”
Gaston raised his hand to slap the boy. He held it in the air for a moment and then dropped it to his side. “We will all be safe in White Citadel. It is only a half-day’s walk from here. I promise you this.”
“Yes,” Roke said. “You’ve promised us all. You promised me. And Seren. And Gerty.”
Gaston looked down at the woman’s body and then at Roke. He glanced around the fire and saw the empty faces staring back at him. He saw several men with sores on their cheeks.
“I will get us to White Citadel. Today.”
The clan turned away from Gaston and back to the fire. Roke took a few steps on the road, facing west and the summit of the low hills they had yet to cross.
“The sickness—”
“There is no sickness,” Gaston insisted, interrupting Roke. “Other than that which usually accompanies the cold season.”
“You say those words but I wonder if you believe them.”
Gaston reached into his coat and pulled out the book. He shook it at Roke, and his eyes reflected the red flames of the fire. “The book says so, not I. We will stand before White Citadel before the sun sets on this day, young Roke. And you will regret doubting me. You will feel foolish when you see the ivory tower rise from the valley,” Gaston said, raising his voice so that the rest of the clan would hear.
“The sores, the sickness—”
“We will be free of all of that once we arrive, and any who do not believe that can lie here in the snow and die,” said Gaston.
Roke turned away and walked back to the fire, leaving Gaston standing alone in the middle of the road.
Chapter 34
The wind rose from the west and pushed at Gaston’s clan, forming an invisible wall of resistance. On it he could detect no scent, no woodland creatures, fowl or game. As they approached the summit, the sun remained hidden behind a veil of thick, gray clouds. Although the squalls subsided, and the air warmed through the late afternoon, a winter chill remained. The clan had fallen into a single line of families and carts. They passed several piles of ruins, both on the road and off to the side, which forced them to weave through the gaps, slowing the convoy down.
Roke walked alongside Gaston at the front of the caravan. “We are almost to the summit and yet I see nothing.”
“It is there. In the valley,” said Gaston. “You will see, soon enough.”
Gaston looked over his shoulder at the straggling line of people following him. He quit taking head counts days ago, but there was no doubt that they were much fewer than they had been when they split from The Elk. The man they left with Seren was not the only one afflicted. Gaston pushed thoughts of her from his mind.
“The air feels heavy,” Roke said.
Gaston didn’t reply but felt it as well. He took deep breaths and yet they failed to fill his lungs. Gaston felt an itch on his right foot but did not stop to scratch it. Over the course of the morning’s journey, the itch had grown into the burn of blood blisters.
“We are almost to the valley. We are almost home.”
They walked another three hundred yards in silence, the sky rising up to greet them while the road cut through it. Gaston turned and halted the caravan.
“We are about to descend into the valley. We will finally see White Citadel. Our long journey is almost over.”
The haggard faces looked back, blank and unblinking. Gaston noticed that those who had the dark red and black sores no longer attempted to hide them. Roke looked at the people and then to Gaston.
“Let’s keep going,” said the boy.
Gaston smiled and he nodded while slapping the boy on the shoulder. “Yes, yes,” Gaston said. “We’re so close.”
Gaston took the book from his coat and flipped through the pages. He ran his finger down one side and then the other.
“What does it say?” Roke asked.
“We will see White Citadel in the Valley of Life. It will rise from the earth and call us home.”
“What does it look like?”
“A gleaming tower,” said Gaston. “A symbol of purity and power.”
Roke nodded and began walking. Gaston put the book back into his coat and continued along the road, pulling even with the boy. The summit was only a few hundred yards away now, and he wanted to run like a child through a field of summer wheat. As the road came to a peak, Gaston saw the hills roll out behind it, encircling the valley in a loose embrace. He stared into the western sky, now turning shades of purple as the sun set behind the winter clouds. Gaston scanned the valley, his eyes roving across the low plateau, and yet he did not see White Citadel.
“Where is it?” Roke asked.
The rest of the caravan began to catch up to Gaston and Roke. The people dropped the handles on their carts and stood, shoulder to shoulder, across the road. They gazed into the empty valley below.
“This is the valley. It must be here.”
“But I don’t see—”
“Shut up,” Gaston snapped, interrupting Roke. “Let me concentrate on finding it.”
Others gathered around them and they all stared at Gaston.
He scanned the valley from the south to the north.
Nothing. No factory ruins or white towers. The valley held nothing but more trees.
“No, no, no,” Gaston said, his voice shaking. “White Citadel is here. It must be here.”
Groans came from the caravan and several people coughed.
“What’s that?” Roke asked. He pointed to the extreme southern edge of the valley.
Gaston turned and looked in the direction Roke pointed. The valley opened to the south. The trees parted to allow another road through. Vast fields bordered each side. Gaston put his hand over his forehead and squinted. “I see only the fields.”
“No!” said Roke, his voice taking on an edge of excitement. “There, on the horizon. There!”
A buzz moved through the clan as individuals began to see what Roke had seen. For the first time in days, they filled the air with excited chatter.
Gaston saw a glimmer, a space just above the horizon where the dull gray of the sky relented to something else—a tower. He could only see the top but he knew the structure was not of the natural world, not a rock formation or a trick of depth perception. Gaston saw the concave sides of the tower meet in a horizontal line at the top, the shape appearing like the top half of an hour glass.
“White
Citadel,” he said.
The chatter turned to laughter and tears. The men and women of the haggard clan hugged each other. Some broke into song. Roke turned to Gaston and smiled. Gaston was far too excited to notice the boy’s missing teeth.
“You were right,” Roke said. “You saved us. White Citadel does exist and you got us here.”
“My people,” Gaston said, turning to address his clan. “On the far edge of the valley sits our new home, White Citadel. The journey has been long, and it has tested us. Some have left us, some have been left behind, and others have been reclaimed by our earth-mother. But today, we start anew. We heal, we survive, and then we will thrive.”
The people cheered, and Roke stood next to Gaston, his chest bursting with pride.
“Let us set up camp here tonight. The sun is setting, and it will take us one more half day to reach the far edge of the valley. Tonight we celebrate, and tomorrow we arrive at White Citadel.”
The people lined their carts along the road and several fires sprang up, along with laughter and more song. Roke stood next to Gaston, both of them staring at White Citadel.
“Jonah was wrong. Seren was wrong.”
“No, Roke. Do not harbor ill-will toward them. They lacked faith in White Citadel—in the book. They are ignorant and faithless but not wrong. They did nothing out of anger or spite.”
“She left me, and now I’m here and she is not.”
“That was her choosing,” said Gaston.
A man stumbled to Gaston and offered him a swig from a flask. Gaston saw the small sore on the man’s cheek, and a larger one on his neck, only partially hidden by a scarf. Gaston refused and the man staggered away, his arms in the air and laughter on his lips.
Roke watched the man walk away and then spoke to Gaston in a low voice. “Many are sick.”
“They will heal at White Citadel,” Gaston said. “The sores do not always mean death.”
Roke stood next to Gaston and neither spoke for several minutes. As the sun set and winter clouds faded to black, Gaston stared at the top of the tower. He wiped tears from his eyes.
“Everything changes tomorrow,” he said. “We start over. No more fighting. No more wandering. Tomorrow, we are a new clan.”
Roke yawned. He smiled at Gaston and the coming night again hid the gaps where teeth used to be. “You’ve saved us. Thank you.”
Gaston nodded. He put an arm around Roke.
“We have found White Citadel. It is real. And tomorrow, we will lead our clan to it.”
Roke stood next to Gaston in the middle of the road at the summit. He grinned and gazed at White Citadel. Roke scratched his head and pulled away a clump of hair.
Chapter 35
The tall figure looked down into the valley from the side of the road. He placed a foot steadily on the chair that leaned against the crumbling deck at the front of the hut, glanced around at the remains of old tobacco stubs, and then his gaze settled on the road that led down into the town. A sign hammered to the side of a wooden post at the very edge of the road caught his attention.
Seren’s Place KEEP OUT.
Everything was covered in a thick layer of snow, but he could still make out the same familiar shapes.
Not much has changed since you were a boy, he thought, taking in tops of the buildings scattered across the forest valley. Not much apart from the people that lived in the town now.
But there was no one in the valley. Morlan watched as the flood of his Cygoa warriors headed down the road and spread out into the streets, kicking in doors to ramshackle buildings and beginning their search. He’d wondered if anyone would be here when they arrived, but as the snow had begun to thicken on the road ahead of the march, he had come to believe that the clan that lived here now, on the very outskirts of the old T’yun territory—territory that had been taken from his own clan when he was a boy—would have moved on for the winter. It was what they did; the T’yun before them and the descendants. Only the Cygoa had learned how to withstand the winter.
An early slaughter would have been welcome, he thought, but it will wait.
Morlan stepped down onto the road as a group of warriors passed by, thirty or more of them jogging in a huddle along the middle of the road. Behind them, and into the distance, more clans followed.
He walked down the road, following the warrior pack, until he reached the large open space in the center of the town. There were the remains of a funeral pyre still standing in the middle—a recent cremation—and he was curious.
Over by the remains of the fire he stooped low, kicking aside the charred wood and dust. There was little to show him who had been burned, and he wondered why he even cared.
“The town is empty,” said a voice behind him, and Morlan turned to see the tall, lithe figure of Carlossa, his right hand man and lieutenant, standing a dozen feet away, respectfully keeping his distance.
Morlan nodded. “I knew as much.”
Carlossa was silent, standing and waiting, as Morlan regarded the building around them.
Morlan took a deep breath and ran his hand through the mane of gray hair. “That building over there,” he said, waiting for Carlossa to seek out the squat, shanty hovel that rested between two older stone buildings. “Was where I was born.”
Carlossa looked surprised. “I did not know that you originally came from the lost lands,” the young warrior said.
“Yes,” Morlan said. “I was still very young when we had to flee. I remember the day like it was yesterday, though. I remember when the T’yun came and what they did.”
Carlossa regarded Morlan with squinted eyes, thoughtful. “We can raze the town to the ground, if you wish.”
But Morlan shook his head. “No. Others that follow will take up residence here. We will need the buildings, come the better weather. This and whatever remains of The Wythe. The reservoir not far from here will be a supply of fresh water that we will need. Leave the town standing.”
Morlan looked over the large flat grounds beyond the huge building he presumed was the chief’s. The same building, he remembered, had been his own father’s home, many years before.
“We used to hold celebrations on this plaza,” he said. “Like my own sister’s wedding.”
“Yes,” Carlossa said. “You have spoken of your old town and the celebrations before.”
“And they are why we celebrate as we do,” Morlan said. “We must keep the old spirit of our people alive.”
“What will you do when we do meet the clans that live here now?” Carlossa asked.
Morlan was silent for a long while, and when he spoke there was a bitterness to his voice. “We will kill the older ones,” he said. “All of them.”
Carlossa frowned. “And the young?”
“I am yet to decide,” Morlan said. “Are the young to blame for what their fathers did to our people? I don’t know. A wise man would kill them all, to save any troubles later.”
“Such as us,” said Carlossa.
Morlan frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to save the trouble that the sons of the fathers may cause. Such as we are, come back to avenge our fathers and mothers.”
Morlan thought on this for a moment and realized that the boy was right. He and his clans were the remainder—those the T’yun did not kill. The survivors. And we’re here for revenge, he thought. Here to take back what is ours and punish for what was done to our fathers and mothers.
“We will see how the land lies,” he said, looking up and back at the road behind them. Soon hundreds more of his kin would be arriving behind the warriors, a long caravan train of women, children and the old, and then more warriors.
And we will take the land we need by force, he thought.
“In the meantime,” Morlan said, “fetch me that witch doctor thing. I have a need for his nonsense.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Carlossa. The young man turned and ran off across the clearing.
Morlan stayed where he was, staring into
the ashes of the funeral pyre in front of him. As he heard Carlossa returning, mostly from the curses and moaning of the old witch doctor, he spotted something glimmering in the black dust. Morlan leaned down, pushed aside the ashes and took in a sharp breath. Among the ashes, at the foot of the pyre, lay a tiny silver bracelet covered with a black stain. He picked it out, stood back up and rubbed at the metal with his sleeve.
He almost staggered.
How? he thought. How, after so long, does this come back to me?
The bracelet was made from the lightest of blue silver, and barely weighed anything. The rings of metal were large and round, delicate, and across the backs of the rings were twisted and circling patterns, swirls. A relic from an age when such things were crafted by men instead of found in the ruins.
And he remembered.
A vague image crossed his mind of a memory of childhood. He had searched the ruins and found the old foundry up in the hills, the remains of a camp that was long abandoned. Rubbish was strewn everywhere. And among the junk left behind, the bracelet. It hadn’t changed a bit. The thing he held in his hands after so many long years was still unmarred by time.
Another image crossed his mind. That of the expression on his sister’s face when he had given her the bracelet as a gift. She had been so beautiful, he thought. The only one who was worthy of such a find. She had been overjoyed at the gift, and he had been equally pleased at the attention and hugs he received from the girl whom he adored more than any other. She could be a queen, he’d thought. My sister should have been a queen.
He closed his eyes, trying to will away the last image that was forcing its way to the surface but it was coming regardless. Darkness, cries, screams, fear. The night the T’yun had raided this very town and forced them out. Days of stumbling through the forest, heading north with the remnants of his village.
A remnant that hadn’t included his captured sister.
Morlan looked at the ashes of the fire in front of him and wondered if this was all that remained of his beloved sister, or if she still lived somewhere among the eastern clans. Was this her funeral pyre? That, he thought would be typical of the unfairness of the world, that he should have to wait all these long years, only to walk into the town a few days after his sister had passed on.
